" The Peace on The Horizon - 70 Years after The World War 2 in the Middle East" (7)

(Japanese Version)

(Arabic Version)



Chapter 1 Wave of nationalism and socialism (1945-1956)

1.    Atlantic Charter

It was common that both parties in the war built a plan on the postwar new order immediately after the start of the war. In case of a war by two neighboring countries, it usually the annexation of the enemy's land to their own country or monetary compensation burdened by the loser. But as for the World War I and II, the plan of a new global order was assessed in addition to territorial annexation and/or monetary compensation.



In case of World War II, both the Allied Powers led by US and the Axis countries led by Germany had simultaneously studied postwar global new order at the early stage of the war. However, it was the Allied Powers that decided the postwar world order. The plan by the Axis of Germany, Japan and Italy was scrapped by Allied Powers and never realized. The Allied side, the victorious countries, erased completely Axis’s plan.

 What was the post-war plan by the Allied Powers? In August 1941, Atlantic Charter was drawn up by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. It was two years later after the UK and France declared the war against Germany in 1939. At that time, the United States supported the British and French, but not participating in the war. US declared the war against Axis Countries, namely Germany, Italy and Japan on the next day after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941.



The "Atlantic Charter" declared by the United States and the United Kingdom was made up of eight articles. In Article 1 to Article 3, it was written as follows.



“First, their countries seek no aggrandizement, territorial or others;

Second, they desire to see no territorial changes that do not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned;

Third, they respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live; and they wish to see sovereign rights and self-government restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them;”



The eight principal points of the Charter were:

1.    No territorial gains were to be sought by the United States or the United Kingdom;

2.    Territorial adjustments must be in accord with the wishes of the peoples concerned;

3.    All people had a right to self-determination;

4.    Trade barriers were to be lowered;

5.    There was to be global economic cooperation and advancement of social welfare;

6.    The participants would work for a world free of want and fear;

7.    The participants would work for freedom of the seas;

8.    There was to be disarmament of aggressor nations, and a common disarmament after the war.

The Versailles regime (Paris Peace Conference) after World War I showed traditional characters such as colonialism and imperialism. It also showed the punishment which imposed sanctions and huge compensation to the losers. The current Syria and Lebanon - so-called Levant region - were colonized by France. UK colonized Jordan, Palestine and Iraq. This was based on the Sykes- Picot Agreement signed by both countries in 1916 (Please refer to “Triple tongue diplomacy”, Prologue 4, 5 & 6). Germany was also faced to severe disarmament along with the forfeit of its territory. The fierce punishment against Germany resulted in Nazism. It caused the World War II after two decades. The Atlantic charter was a lesson of this failure. It was the fruits of the idealism of United States.



In postwar era in the Middle East, independent movement of the nation state started to realize US ideology. The Kingdom of Jordan and the Republic of Syria were established in 1946. There were many factors for the establishment of two countries. They were not nation-states in the real meaning. The Kingdom of Jordan was a fruit of the McMahon-Hussein Correspondence between the UK and Hassim royal family. Syrian Republic was a very vulnerable republican state. It was simply a dummy of France. France wanted to rule Syria as imperialistic dictator.



Following Jordan and Syria, new nation countries were born one after another in the Middle East. But the Middle East was a world where prevailing the struggle of ethnicity, religion and political ideology without harmony. It became a battle fields of proxy war of the East-West conflict between the US and the Soviet Union.


(To be continued ----)

By Areha Kazuya

E-mail: areha_kazuya@jcom.home.ne.jp

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